


5 times Vang0 worried about Burger +1 time they didn't

by Eiso



Series: hanahaki au [3]
Category: Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt/Comfort, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:41:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27223684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiso/pseuds/Eiso
Summary: "Burger seemed distracted lately, his actions just a bit sluggish and his words just a bit desperate and he seemed to have a constant cough and they didn’t know why, they couldn’t figure out how to help him; every time they asked if he was okay Burger just waved them off with a “nah, I love ya but there’s nothing you can do about it,” or something along those lines and Vang0 had never felt so useless in their entire life."
Relationships: Vang0 Bang0/Burger Chainz
Series: hanahaki au [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950241
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	5 times Vang0 worried about Burger +1 time they didn't

**Author's Note:**

> hey so being the reason your best friend almost dies has to be pretty traumatizing, right  
> this is a rough one y'all  
> tw: drugs/discussion of drug addiction, body horror, blood/gore, death/discussions of death, panic attacks, mild suicidal ideation

1.

Something was wrong with Burger, and Vang0 didn’t know what to do. Burger seemed distracted lately, his actions just a bit sluggish and his words just a bit desperate and he seemed to have a constant cough and they didn’t know _why_ , they couldn’t figure out how to help him; every time they asked if he was okay Burger just waved them off with a “nah, I love ya but there’s nothing you can do about it,” or something along those lines and Vang0 had never felt so useless in their entire life. Ever since that one bout of pneumonia a couple months ago Burger had seemed out of sorts, but he’d gotten antibiotics from Hypo and his fever had gone down and he would tell them if something was wrong, wouldn’t he? Burger might be a little dim but he wasn’t _stupid_ , he’d let them know if he was still sick, he’d told them about all his illnesses before, sometimes in excruciating detail, so there must be another reason for his mood changes, his ever present cough, the way he was losing weight alarmingly fast, the constant tremor in his hands -- oh shit.

A throwaway line from months ago echoed in Vang0’s mind, Burger responding to Hypo’s question about drug addictions with an offer to acquire one, and sure, Hypo had declined, but they wouldn’t put it past their friend to get into trouble because they misinterpreted a request or maybe if they thought it would help them on a job and the symptoms fit, didn’t they? If Burger thought he needed that extra edge for a fight he might have taken something dangerous and gotten hooked, but still, he’d tell Vang0, right? They shouldn’t panic without asking him about it, or at the very least gathering some more information -- Dasha would know more for sure, she was good with these sorts of things.

Their conversation with Dasha hadn’t gone quite as they’d hoped; instead of laughing in their face and pointing out all the ways Vang0’s concerns were stupid and unfounded, she’d gone quiet and pensive and promised to make a few calls, but the more Vang0 thought about it in the following days, the more they were sure that drugs weren’t the issue. Burger was being a bit more edgy than usual, sure, but he didn’t ever seem particularly high and his symptoms didn’t come in waves like they would with withdrawal; he was sneaking around, sure, but every time Vang0 pretended to be asleep when Burger came back from a midnight walk their friend didn’t seem any better even temporarily, if anything, he would be shaking worse and acting almost panicked. Vang0 even thought they’d heard Burger crying one night, but the moment they’d come over to check on him he’d pretended to be asleep, and he’d been sleeping so poorly lately that Vang0 didn’t want to disturb even that horrible semblance of rest, so Vang0 had just booted up their agent and browsed jumptrash until Burger’s breath had evened out into the wheezing snore that, as of late, indicated he’d actually managed to fall asleep.

The worst part was that most of the time Burger acted completely normal; he moderated Vang0’s streams and make jokes and dumb 80s references and laughed at Vang0 when they fucked up and slammed bar stools on people’s heads and teamed up with Dasha to make Vang0’s life miserable and threw punches whenever anyone else tried to do the same and basically was the same steady warm presence he always was -- so it was even more jarring when that persona broke just enough to show that it was a mask, that something was wrong, that the strong foundation of their little family was crumbling and Vang0 didn’t know why and _goddammit_ they should be able to fix this, why couldn’t they just _fix_ this, they _needed to fix this_. But, they didn’t know how, so they did their best to act normal and shared worried glances with Dasha behind Burger’s back and made sure to spend as much time as possible with their friend so that they could finally figure this shit out.

2.

Vang0 had been spending most of their nights sleeping in Burger’s van, as of late, keeping as close an eye on their friend as they could without raising suspicions, so it wasn’t that surprising that they were there the night everything finally came to a head. They were pretty sure Burger hadn’t slept at all the past couple nights, and Vang0 knew that they sure as hell hadn’t, but they thought he’d finally managed to drift off so they had closed their eyes just for a second and the next thing they knew they woke up to a raccoon trying to steal their eye-cam because the van door was wide open and Burger was gone. Vang0 would have just assumed that Burger was going on one of the late night walks he’d been taking more and more recently but he’d never left the door open before and there was blood on the floor and -- were those petals? What the fuck? Had Burger gotten into a fight with a florist? Vang0 was wide awake at this point so they scrambled for their agent and shot a message to Dasha to _get over here right the fuck now_ and followed the trail of blood and flowers a couple yards down the street to where there was a crumpled form on the sidewalk and of course that wasn’t Burger who was lying so still on the pavement, it was someone else with a faded vest and a ginger mullet and a metal jaw glinting in the light of a streetlamp, it was someone else surrounded by pink petals that shone with blood, it was someone else who’s chest wasn’t moving who wasn’t breathing oh shit Burger wasn’t breathing --

Vang0’s knees wouldn’t thank them tomorrow for how fast they dropped to the ground next to -- Burger’s body, not his body, he’s fine, he’ll be fine -- next to their friend, but for now they barely felt it as they watched his chest for any sign of movement -- he’s not breathing why isn’t he breathing -- as they pressed two fingers to his limp wrist to check his pulse -- it’s still there, thank god, they hadn’t fucked up irreparably they could still fix this -- as they brushed blood and a rogue petal from the corner of Burger’s mouth before opening it to see what was obstructing his airway and _what the fuck_ his mouth was full of blood and flower petals, Vang0 could see what looked like twigs leading into his throat, and right now they were panicking but later, once they had fixed this -- they were going to fix this they had to fix this Burger had to be okay they couldn’t lose him -- they were going to find who had done this to their friend and they were going to make them die real slow. 

For now though, they called Dasha and switched on speaker and started clearing the plants from Burger’s mouth as their agent rang and rang -- and it felt like there should be sirens wailing and dramatic music playing and maybe someone screaming but the only sounds were the distant roar of the highway and Vang0’s quiet sobs as they pulled flower after flower from Burger’s throat, they just kept coming, when would they stop coming, they had to fix this _please_ let them fix this -- and Dasha _finally_ picked up a few seconds after Vango carefully pulled a goddamned handful of twigs from Burger’s airway, dripping blood, and checked Burger’s pulse and oh fuck it wasn’t there so they started chest compressions while begging Dasha to get over here right now it’s Burger please hurry please _help me_ , and didn’t bother terminating the call as they paused momentarily to tilt Burger’s chin back and blow two breaths into his limp mouth -- god, they’d imagined how Burger’s lips would taste so many times but never had they thought he’d taste like blood and bitter petals and fear -- and two more rounds of compressions later Burger -- _thank fuck_ \-- took a gasping breath and burst into a coughing fit that Vang0 knew was going to feature in their nightmares for the foreseeable future because --

Burger was coughing up flowers, and blood, and choking as another twig emerged from his throat -- Vang0 hurriedly pulled it from his mouth and they didn’t know if that was what they were supposed to do but they didn’t know what the fuck they were supposed to do in this situation anyways, they didn’t know what was going on but they knew it was Bad with a capital B because Burger was choking and they didn’t know how to help and if they couldn’t fix it their best friend was going to die, oh shit Burger was going to die -- and finally, _finally_ the flowers were slowing and the coughing fit was subsiding but Burger still wasn’t responding, and finally, _finally_ Vang0 heard Dasha calling their name from down the street as she sprinted over to them and dropped to the ground next to them and took Burger’s hand in hers as she demanded to know what was going on and Vang0 stammered out that they didn’t know, they’d just found him like this, is he sick, Dasha what’s going on, and finally, _finally_ Burger was opening his eyes and looking up at them, confused, as Dasha muttered threats and insults under her breath and Vang0 managed to ask 

“Burger, what’s going on, why are you coughing up flowers, seriously what the hell?”

Burger took a pained breath and coughed weakly, blood bubbling over his lips and dripping onto Vang0’s pajama bottoms -- and usually they’d throw a fit over that sort of thing, but usually they hadn’t just had to wrench their best friend back from the dead so they’d consider these extenuating circumstances -- and choked out that 

“Hypo said it was called hanahaki or somethin’? It’s real uncommon, there’s a treatment but I can’t afford to get it so I’ve been trying the home cure and it ain’t working out so well, I just figured I’d just find a nice quiet spot to kick the bucket, ya know,”

And it was probably rude of them but Vang0 couldn’t just sit there and watch Burger discuss his own death with such a resigned look on his face, so they stood up and paced back to the van and buried their hands in their hair and tried to figure out how to fix this -- if the treatment was too expensive that was no problem, they’d just steal the money or threaten someone or sell an organ or two on the black market, they just hoped it wasn’t too late, Vang0 was going to _murder_ Hypo for keeping this from them, and then once Burger was better they’d kill him too, why hadn’t he just asked them for help, they could have _helped_ , and they could vaguely hear Burger trying to comfort them -- and didn’t that make Vang0 feel like a piece of shit, that the dying man was trying to comfort them rather than the other way around -- and Dasha responding in a low voice, and -- _god, fuck_ \-- Burger coughing again, but it wasn’t until they heard Burger say their name that turned and focused back on him as he rasped out

“Vang0, please can I hold your hand, please Vang0 I love you please you shouldn’t be sad please can you hold my hand Vang0 _please please please_ ”

And hearing Burger begging like that made Vang0 feel sick to their stomach, but they swallowed down their nausea and stepped back to Burger’s side and took his free hand and pressed a kiss to his palm before saying 

“Of course I’ll hold your hand but don’t you dare try to comfort me right now, this whole situation sucks and if you die I’ll never forgive you,”

And Burger was looking up at him with an odd glint in his eyes before he seemed to decide on something and let go of Vang0’s hand to pull them down into a kiss, and they were nearly frozen with shock -- because _what?_ Burger said he loved them all the time but he said that to all his friends, surely they couldn’t have been so stupid as to miss this, but apparently they had been because they could once again taste blood on Burger’s lips only this time those lips were moving against their own -- but this might be one of the last changes Vang0 got to do this, so even though the timing could not _possibly_ be any worse they twined their hands through Burger’s hair and kissed him back.

3.

Hypo took Dasha and Vang0 aside once Burger was settled into one of the clinic beds with an oxygen tank and a morphine drip and explained what was actually going on -- that Burger was part of the unlucky 3% of people with brain augments who developed hanahaki within their lifetime, that it was something like an autoimmune disease crossed with a computer virus, that he’d be okay now that he’d managed to successfully communicate his feelings to them, except that he’d probably have permanent lung damage and chronic lung issues for the rest of his fucking life so Vang0 wasn’t sure exactly how that fit the description of _okay_ , Hypo -- but the biggest takeaway was that this was all Vang0’s fault, that Vango had done this to Burger, that Vang0 had almost killed their best friend.

And sure, Hypo hadn’t phrased it exactly like that, but Vang0 was perfectly capable of reading between the lines; Burger was sick with a disease that caused a fucking tree to grow in his lungs unless he told Vang0 how he felt about them, Vang0 was too much of a fucking idiot to understand what Burger was actually saying when he told them he loved them, ergo, Vang0 had almost killed their best friend, and it was only through sheer dumb luck that they’d gotten the memo before Burger suffocated on the blood and petals that Vang0 had caused. And sure, Burger didn’t seem to hold it against them too much, but he was too nice for his own good sometimes, he should hate them for calling _him_ stupid when they were too dense and self-absorbed to actually listen to what Burger kept saying -- and _fuck_ , he’d told Vang0 he loved them so many times and Vang0 had always brushed him off because they were scared of being _presumptuous_ , as though an awkward rejection could have been worse than making their friend think he was going to die, Vang0 should be the one in that hospital bed or, better yet, should do everyone a favor and go find a hole to die in so he couldn’t hurt anyone else --

But Burger was still asleep with a machine breathing for him, and Dasha was trembling slightly which for her was basically a full blown panic attack, so Vang0 shoved their own issues aside for the moment and listened to what Hypo was telling them about how to help Burger recover and let Dasha take the chair next to the bed while Vang0 sat against the wall and messaged their black market contacts because they might have fucked up beyond all repair but the least they could do to start making it right was to have some real chicken soup ready for Burger when he woke up.

4.

After Burger had finally been able to walk out of Hypo’s on his own instead of nearly blacking out anytime he did anything more strenuous than sitting up, Dasha and Vang0 had dragged him back to her apartment and set him up on her spare mattress, and then Dasha had proceeded to chew him out for a solid twenty minutes while Vang0 heated up dinner -- they only burned it a little bit, which was better than they usually managed -- and told him in no uncertain terms that if he ever kept something like this from her again he wouldn’t have to worry about the flowers getting him because she would kill him herself. Burger still wasn’t really able to speak properly -- turns out coughing up a tree is bad for your voice -- so he didn’t apologize, exactly, for scaring them, but he pulled Dasha down to sit next to him and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and when Vang0 brought over the soup he barely side-eyed them for the way the vegetables were more char than actual food, so that was really good enough. 

The thing was, Burger couldn’t quite hide the cringe of pain every time he had to eat or drink something, couldn’t hide the coughing fits that ended with him gagging on rotting plant matter as his lungs worked to expel the lingering flowers, couldn’t hide the way that for days after leaving Hypo’s his pillow was speckled with blood every morning, and Vang0 knew he shouldn’t have to hide those things, they didn’t want him to hide those things, but every time they saw evidence of the suffering they had caused the pit in their stomach grew deeper and the itch under their skin grew stronger and Vang0 couldn’t even find a nice quiet alley to go scream in because they couldn’t make themself leave Burger’s side for longer than a few minutes at a time. They couldn’t sleep without a hand on Burger’s chest making sure he was still there, still breathing -- could barely sleep at all because every time they closed their eyes they would remember waking up to find him gone, remember seeing him crumpled on the pavement so horribly still, and decide that no, they didn’t really need to sleep just yet -- but the guilty nerves that built in Vang0’s chest every time they looked at Burger and saw the evidence of their failure, of what they did to him, kept building and building and while Vang0 knew that eventually they would break, they hoped they would at least be able to keep quiet and avoid causing any more trouble than they already had.

Because Vang0 can’t do fucking anything right, of course Burger was witness to their inevitable breakdown. It was a stupid thing that set it off, in the end, they were watching a movie and Burger’s arm was around their shoulder and he had pressed a kiss to their neck just to make them jump at the cold touch of his jaw and Vang0 had pushed him away and jokingly called him a horrible boyfriend, but they must have shoved him at just the wrong angle because Burger broke into a coughing fit and _oh shit_ that was blood on his hand and -- look, intellectually Vang0 knew it probably wasn’t hanahaki again, just a cold irritating Burger’s lungs, but emotionally, Vang0 had pushed their boyfriend and then he started coughing up blood, so -- Vang0 maybe panicked a little. They were honestly pretty proud of how well they held it together until they got into the bathroom, but the instant the door closed behind them they were pressing their hands over their mouth and sinking into the corner between the sink and the bathtub and not even bothering to try to stop themself from bursting into tears because --

Burger was coughing up blood again for the first time in nearly a week, and it was Vang0’s fault, it was all Vang0’s fault, and _fuck_ what if Burger got sick again, what if one morning they woke up to find him still and cold and surrounded by petals, they hadn’t noticed the first time what made them think they would notice if it happened again, it was probably happening again and they had just missed the signs because they were too fucking _stupid_ to recognize when their boyfriend, their best friend, their _partner_ was sick and dying and oh god Burger was probably dying he was definitely dying and Vang0 had missed it and they didn’t want Burger to die they couldn’t fail him again they couldn’t, they couldn’t, they couldn’t --

Gentle hands covered theirs and removed them from their hair -- huh, Vang0 hadn’t noticed moving them from over their mouth -- and they could feel cool metal and warm skin press against the side of their head in a gentle kiss -- oh, that must be Burger, then -- and a strong arm wrapped around their shoulder as Burger rasped out

“Hey, hey calm down now, Vang0, what’s wrong, it’s alright”

And Vang0 had to ask him, had to know, 

“You would tell me if- if it had c-come back, right Burger? I- I know it was- my fault for being so _stupid_ before and I almost kil- killed you but please, tell me who it is I’ll- I’ll help you tell them, I’ll keep you safe, I won’t let it get so b-bad again Burger _please_ -”

And Vang0 barely heard Burger reassuring them over the pounding of their heart in their ears, but they slowly came back to themself to the broken murmur of Burger’s voice and the feel of him slowly rocking them back and forth and when Vang0 finally managed to stop crying they felt hollow inside, but the horrible roiling ball of guilt and fear that had been building in their chest was a little bit less overwhelming and Burger was okay, he was okay, he was holding them tight and saying 

“Hey now, Vang0, you’re alright. It’s all alright.”

5.

Vang0 didn’t take it personally, they really didn’t, the fact that Burger didn’t say he loved them anymore. Burger didn’t say he loved anyone anymore. They hadn’t noticed at first, in the aftermath of Burger almost dying and all, but by the time Burger could talk for more than a sentence at a time it was obvious that he just -- wasn’t telling his friends he loved them. Where before he would react with a casual “aw, I love you guys” or respond to a friendly insult with a “love you too,” Burger would simply laugh, or stay quiet, or open his mouth to say something but close it again before forming any words, and that didn’t stop him from smiling and kissing Vang0 whenever they managed to tell him they love him, didn’t stop him from pulling Dasha down into a hug whenever she admitted that she cared about him, but the absences lingered. It mostly just hurt to be reminded of how much Burger had been hurt by all this, by Vang0’s stupidity -- and yeah, they’d had a few long conversations with Burger about “misplaced guilt” and “forgiving yourself” and “going to therapy” but that wasn’t going to stop Vang0 from feeling like shit every time there was a situation in which Burger would have said he loved someone if the phrase hadn’t been tainted by months of slow suffocation.

It was a relief, then, when Vang0 woke up one night, after months of not hearing him tell them he loved them, to hear Burger practicing the phrase under his breath. It was nearly soundless, but Vang0 woke on a hair trigger these days, and as they pretended to still be asleep they could hear Burger slowly whispering the words, stuttering and halting but _there_ , and they could listen to Burger tell them he loved them forever but they almost felt like a voyeur, to be hearing this when Burger thought they were asleep, so they feigned shifting in their sleep and Burger stopped talking but over the next couple months it became almost routine for Vang0 to wake up to Burger practising his _I love you_ s, a quiet reassurance that yeah, things were shitty, but maybe, someday, they might be better.

Someday apparently arrived on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday. They were on a pretty easy job -- Dasha had charmed the relevant information out of a high class mark, Vang0 had made a snide comment about his fashion sense, Dasha had insulted their mustache, the mark had agreed, Dasha had knocked the mark unconscious, all in a day’s work -- Vang0 was making fun of Dasha for having emotions and she was pretending to not know what they were talking about and where nowadays Burger would usually just laugh and ruffle their hair, he instead said “you guys are cute, I love you so much” in such a carefully casual way that Vang0 opened their mouth to comment about it but Dasha caught their eye and glared at them in the way that meant that if they said what was on their mind she’d strangle them in their sleep so instead they just told Burger that they loved him too and Dasha roped them into tying up the mark so he wouldn’t cause problems later, and over the following weeks Burger slowly started saying he loved them again and Dasha kept making sure Vang0 didn’t stick their foot in their mouth and maybe Burger’d words still sounded stilted and artificial but Vang0 would take what they could get.

+1 

The thing that finally convinced Vang0 that everything was going to work out was a stupid little thing, really. It wasn’t when Burger slammed a mark’s head through a diner table the first time back on the job, it wasn’t when he agreed to move in with them instead of risking the cold weather in his van, no, it was a stupid half-asleep comment that finally did it. Burger was hogging the blankets and when Vang0 tried to get some for themself Burger sleepily lashed out, catching Vang0 in the side with a surprisingly forceful kick for someone doing their best impression of a burrito, and when Vang0 had indignantly said “hey! you kneed me!” he’d mumbled “yeah, I do” and promptly fallen back asleep and Vang0 was still pissed about the blankets but that comment sparked such a warmth in their chest that they barely noticed -- okay, that was a lie, they had to go get the spare blanket from the couch, but that’s not the point -- and they knew that they were going to be okay.


End file.
